As I sit here, doing pretty much nothing, just passing time
until I can hit the grocery store, I’ve been reading on forums and of course,
and as usual, the Isle of Whack has inspired me, yet again, to write.
The subject of the day? Blattodea <AKA> Cockroaches!
There was a time in my life when I loathed nothing more than
a spider. I was young and the spiders would sneak into my dreams, well for
effect we will call them nightmares. As a young child I was the oddest of
creatures (as if I am not still) and I was 100% tom boy during the day and 100%
girly-girl whilst I slept apparently. During the day I would climb trees, get
dirty, and overturn rocks to be bug inspired. During the night, the rock
turning, I suppose, unlocked my subconscious fear of bugs, and I would kick and
scream and just generally drive everyone within ear shot or hitting range
completely out of their gourds.
I learned to challenge my fear of the eight legged freaks; I
won’t say that I got over it because every time I see a spider there is still a
moment of gasping and freezing before I take action, but for the most part I
manage not to lose my mind.
Cockroaches? Now cockroaches are another horse all together.
This is the only insect on the face of the earth that can reduce me to tears in
seconds flat. This is the only insect that I truly feel should be wiped from
existence and happily so. There are too many species, too many places for them
to hide, too many absolutely terrifying things about them and even in writing
this I can feel my skin crawling with that fear denial that people sometimes
get.
Growing up in an economically challenged area of Toronto
Canada, I have seen my share of roaches.
Living for the first part of my adult life in an even more economically
challenged area; I had the distinct pleasure of living with the ugly bug.
For those of you who think the common cockroach is harmless, I suggest that you
think again. When my son was an infant
he had to see a respirologist for a type of infant asthma and it was then that
I learned that not only to the ugly bugs bite (GASP)but they also carry a
substance on their legs that trigger asthma in those with a pre-existing
condition and those who are immune-suppressed ( infants and seniors.)
Learning this fact, coupled with the fact that my apartment
building was well on the side of infested and getting worse by the day…so bad
in fact that I’m quite sure I went for months with no sleep because I sat in a
chair on guard around my children’s beds so that the bugs would crawl on them
and YES it was so bad that I had to swat the bugs off the beds that I’m quite
sure that I developed my cockroach anxiety somewhere along that path.
But I digress…
Not only did I have the run of the mill little red (brown) “German”
species, but I also discovered through my potty training at the time 3 year old
son that I had the “monsmer” <aka Monster> kind, which I was told by an
exterminator was some type of harmless Oriental Cockroach and trust me when I
tell you that I couldn’t care less if it was harmless, I just wanted it gone!
It was about 3 inches in length and met a rather violent demise by hammer. As
did his brother who had taken up living under my kitchen sink. *SHUDDERS*
I have not lived in the vicinity of a cockroach for over ten
years… THANK THE GODS!
There is nothing on earth as irrevocably disgusting to me as
a cockroach and nothing or no one is going to ever change my mind. When I see
an earwig I freak thinking that I have been somehow hunted down by the ugly
bug. Once I realize that it is in fact not a roach, (though I am quite sure
they are related somehow) I am calmer. If I see a bug that resembles a roach,
or a speck of dust that resembles a roach or someone tauntingly telling me that
they have found a roach in my home, I am about 2 seconds shy of total meltdown.
It is something that the people in my family know not to mess with me about,
they have seen my reactions, they don’t always understand them, but they’ve no
desire to see me go through the anxiety and quite honestly fear that some day I
will have to be sedated because of it.
It’s not just a little bug… it’s EVIL in the form of an
insect.
And now that I have completely skeeved myself out in talking
about it… I think I need a shower!